Maine Man Gets Life for Murdering Girlfriend and Two Children, Sexually Assaulting 8-Year-Old
A Garland, Maine, man was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for the triple murders of his girlfriend and her two children in 2014, PEOPLE confirms.
Keith Coleman, 29, was found guilty last November of killing his 36-year-old girlfriend, Christina Sargent, her 10-year-old son, Duwayne Coke, and her 8-year-old daughter, Destiny Sargent, according to court records.
Coleman was also convicted of sexually assaulting the 8-year-old girl, the records state. He received an additional 20 years for the sexual assault.
Before he was sentenced, Coleman told Superior Court Justice Ann Murray at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor, Maine, “I hope you have mercy on me,” WLBZ2 reports.
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Calling the murders “callous, cold and calculated,” the judge said, “Life is the only appropriate sentence,” WLBZ2 reports.
Coleman was ordered to pay almost $20,000 in restitution to cover funeral expenses for the victims.
“This case sends a message: Real men don’t hit their wives and they certainly don’t kill their wives,” said Asst. Attorney General Donald Macomber, WCHS6 reports.
“If you do you’re going to spend the rest of your life behind bars.”
‘He Took Her Love and Killed Her With It’
On Dec. 20, 2014, Coleman strangled Sargent and her two children in the Garland, Maine, trailer where they lived, according to court records.
He told police he chased the children and strangled them because they had witnessed their mother’s murder, according to WABI TV.
During his trial, jurors watched part of Coleman’s almost four-hour interview with Maine State Police detectives when the prosecution says he confessed, according to the Bangor Daily News.
“I did it,” said Coleman, according to the video. “I did it. I don’t want to say that word, but…I did it. I killed my girl.”
When one of the detective asked him whom he killed, he replied, “Chrissie and the kids.”
In her closing arguments, Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea said Coleman’s DNA and semen found at the crime scene proves he murdered the victims, according to the Bangor Daily News.
Defense attorney Logan Perkins of Bangor could not immediately be reached for comment. He told reporters that he would appeal the case to the state supreme court.
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After Coleman’s conviction in November, Sargent’s mother, Mary Wooster, told WVII-TV that “Chrissy was looking for love. And she thought Keith was it. So he took that love and he killed her with it, and my grandkids.”
Wooster and her family have helped raise more than $14,000 to help those facing domestic violence.
“It doesn’t bring them back, but it’s a message to anyone out there who thinks about doing the same type of crime,” Wooster said, according to WCHS6.
